But cold extremes don’t really explain why fatal heart attacks peak on Christmas and New Year’s Day, especially among the most rapidly stricken patients. According to the Circulation study, “The number of cardiac deaths is higher on Dec. 25 than on any other day of the year, second highest on Dec. 26, and third highest on Jan. 1.”

Adding to the mystery, why do holiday heart attacks shoot up consistently across the country, even in balmy climes such as Los Angeles, where winter weather stays mild and no one ever wields a snow shovel?

In Kloner’s own research, he found one-third more coronary artery disease deaths in December and January than in June through September during a 12-year period in Los Angeles County.

Quote:

In a national 2004 study published in Circulation, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and Tufts University School of Medicine examined 53 million U.S. death certificates from 1973 to 2001. They discovered an overall increase of 5% more heart-related deaths during the holiday season. When researchers looked at individual years, they found varying increases in cardiac deaths for every holiday period they studied, except two.

So might not be more heart attacks but more fatal cardiac events,in a similar time frame, then rest of the year.

Well, it seems plausible that people may ignore early symptoms because they have better things to do than go to the hospital (or blame too much food and stress); and, of course, they can't call their family doctor to ask if there's reason to worry.